


all things can tempt me

by andibeth82



Series: a dialogue of self and soul [5]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Comfort/Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fights, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-24
Updated: 2014-03-24
Packaged: 2018-01-16 20:55:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1361488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andibeth82/pseuds/andibeth82
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“We’re having a baby,” she says after a long beat, as if she’s hearing herself say it for the first time, and Clint raises an eyebrow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	all things can tempt me

**Author's Note:**

> There are not enough words in the world that can express my thanks to [bobsessive](bobsessive.tumblr.com) and [fidesangelus](fidesangelus.tumblr.com), my betas and cheerleaders who, in addition to editing, helped hammer out major plot points and kicked me into productivity when I was feeling creatively stunted.

After six months, Natasha is finally starting to (for all intents and purposes) actually look pregnant.

She’s felt it for weeks – before that, even, when no one could really tell at all, when Tony chided her about how, in addition to everything else, she must have developed some superpower that made her able to carry a kid invisibly. She’s known it since she saw the first small pudge of skin start to distend from her middle, since she started to feel something not quite right about her body, since Clint ran his hand over her stomach and his fingers felt just different enough on her skin to cause her to take notice.

“Guess going on missions in the normal attire is out for awhile,” Clint says when she starts to show, a comment which earns him a few days of a nasty bruise that she only feels half-bad about being the cause of. He’s stopped pressing her about names though, because despite the fact that they’ve been able to narrow down a few options, they’ve more or less decided that Natasha doesn’t have to call her child anything she doesn’t want to, until she’s actually holding it in her arms. It’s a compromise that’s made her feel slightly better about the whole situation, a cross between acceptance and denial that at least allows the weight of full acknowledgment of the situation to be lifted from her shoulders.

Bruce schedules the ultrasound for a few weeks later, hooking her up to various sorts of machines that Natasha’s quite sure ordinary pregnant women don’t have to deal with. To his credit, he seems to understand her thought-process as he helps her onto the table that’s been set up in Tony’s workshop.

“Yeah, it’s probably a little abnormal. Sorry about that,” he says nervously, his eyes flitting back and forth between the beeping monitors while Natasha smiles just as nervously in return.

“You okay?” Clint asks quietly, placing a hand on her shoulder as her eyes rove over her body, noting the mess of wires and electrodes. She swallows, nods once, and it’s not even the fact that she’s pretty sure she’ll never _not_ be terrified in these kind of situations – she’s long accepted there’s nothing she can really do about it – but more that the nature of this ultrasound is raising the stakes on an entirely different level.

Natasha’s not sure if she’s actually ready to _see_ a version of what she’s creating.

“I feel like this is Tony’s version of three men and a baby,” she mutters, which causes Bruce and Clint smile wryly. Tony, however, looks pained.

“Don’t give Rogers any ideas,” he deadpans before looking up. “He might make that our next movie night and I’ve already promised him we’re watching _Caddyshack_.”

Natasha shakes her head as she pulls up her shirt and Bruce reaches for a small tube, squirting a mess of cold liquid over her stomach. Clint tightens his fingers around her hand and suddenly everything seems real and frightening all at once.

She allows herself to breathe, closing her eyes in the stretch of silence that follows, trusts that Clint will tell or alert her of anything she needs to be acutely aware of. His grip is strong, long slender fingers wrapped around her hand like a vice: a comforting anchor where she’s afraid that if she lets go, she’ll float out with the tide and become swallowed up in waters too deep for her to stand in on her own.

“Damn,” Clint says quietly, his voice barely audible, and Natasha’s eyes snap open as if someone has tried to induce an attack.

“What? _What_?” she repeats more loudly when no one responds, and she can just barely see the top of the monitor over Bruce and Tony’s head.

“Nothing,” Bruce says, turning with a smile and raised eyebrows. “Everything looks great. Better than great, actually. I’m a little surprised at how well the injections have worked.”

Natasha lifts her head. “So that means…I’m not…” she swallows, trying to find words that seem lost in her throat, and Tony steps in.

“It means that as far as we’re concerned, that’s an actual person you have inside of you, which also means we did enough over the past few months that your body can at least stand to let this thing grow. We’ll keep watching, but there’s no reason this kid shouldn’t deliver properly.” He looks so proud of himself that Natasha has to turn away, mostly because she’s not exactly sure how to react.

“Clint,” she says quietly in response, searching for his face, fear suddenly creeping into her body because in some sense, this all seems too flawless to be true and how does she know they’re not just screwing with her, telling her what they want to believe? He moves into view beside her, still holding her hand.

“Yeah. It’s real.” He pauses, trying and failing to keep the small smile off his face. “You wanna see?”

There’s a part of her that’s screaming _no_ , but the other half is so intensely curious that she finds she can’t help herself. Natasha nods, not trusting her voice, and Clint helps her sit up so that she can view the monitors more clearly.

It’s almost a relief at first, to see they hadn’t been lying or trying to make her feel better – there’s a small grainy figure moving in place on the screen, barely the shape of a person, but enough of a presence to be tangible. As if on cue, she brings one hand to her stomach, unconsciously letting her fingers massage the distended skin in time to the movement on the screen, her eyes suddenly glazing over. Clint reaches over with his other hand, drawing her close as he sees her start to shake slightly, and for a moment, she’s only distantly aware that Bruce and Tony are still in the room.

“I’d give up all my arrows,” he says softly, at a volume that he knows only she can hear, and the weight of his words lie heavily on her chest.

 

***

 

Natasha remains quiet on the way back to their room with Clint trailing behind her. When they’re safely alone again, she releases a breath she hasn’t realized she’s been holding, sinking onto the bed and closing her eyes.

“Hey.” Clint steps forward immediately in the wake of her action, putting his hands on her shoulders and bending down to meet her height. “It’s good, okay? It’s going to be good.” He traces a finger down her face until she opens her eyes and he searches them, settling on the uncertainty he finds there, letting her see that he understands.

“I know,” she concedes when she finally speaks, the words feeling like they’re more for his benefit than hers, mostly because she knows he needs something in return and she’s not exactly sure what she’s prepared to give him. Clint straightens up, his grip unmoving.

“You wanna head back downstairs?” He gestures with one hand towards the door. “I think Steve said something about wanting to research some weaponry.”

Natasha smiles tightly, shaking her head. “Mind if I shower instead? Not exactly comfortable right now.” As if to prove her point, she pulls up her shirt and rubs her hands over the stickiness of the liquid still left on her stomach from the ultrasound and Clint frowns slightly.

“Yeah. Of course.”

He kisses her gently on the side of the head and Natasha waits until she’s sure he’s moved out of the room before she makes her way to the bathroom, shedding her clothes until she’s down to nothing but her underwear and bra. Closing the door behind her, she runs the water at full speed until it’s almost halfway up the rim, before stepping out of the rest of her clothing and into the tub, letting her legs fan out in front of her as she rests her head backwards in an awkward measure of relaxation.

She washes her hair once, twice, threads her fingers through wet curls until she feels the tips shrivel with water exposure and then relaxes again, grabbing the razor from its place by the soap dish and bringing a hand up to her knee, scraping the blade idly across her legs.

There’s an instant sting of pain and she looks down in surprise to find a nick on the underside of her calf. A small pool of blood bubbles up from the cut and she stares at it for a long time, unwavering, until the dot becomes a swimming haze. Natasha closes her eyes against the sight.

_Can you? Can you wipe out that much red?_

The voice flattens out, loud and sneering, and she shakes her head sharply, dragging the razor upwards in response, her trained grasp allowing it to cut harshly into her skin. _Get out_ , she thinks desperately, her mind a mist of rage. _Get out, get out, get out._

_Your ledger is dripping…_

Of course it was dripping. It would always be dripping. And her child’s ledger would be dripping. And as much as Loki was wrong, at the same time, he was nothing but right, and fuck, how _dumb_ was she to try to bring a child into this world when everything would just be dripping and dripping and always be dripping and -

“Jesus, Tasha!”

And apparently she’s forgotten to lock the fucking door because Clint opens it in time to find her staring trance-like at the cuts on her leg, the water in the tub swirling with a mixture of foamy soap and dark red. He doesn’t think, simply reaches into the tub and hauls her upright until she’s standing with water and blood pooling around her ankles, the swell of her stomach a paunchy bulge in a body otherwise lean and slender, hair waterlogged and dark and plastered to her shoulders, against her back, hands in a tremor. She’s naked and red and completely, utterly bare in a way that she vaguely knows he’s never seen before, for all the times they’ve made love in strange motel rooms and explored the crevices of each other’s bodies under dim lighting and screamed each other’s names into pillows in the middle of deserts and tents and cities.

“I’m fine.” She finds her voice, pushing into it all the confidence and firmness she can muster, squaring her shoulders and wrenching away from his grasp. She’s strong, but Clint is stronger in a way she’s not quite prepared for (because she’s better, she’s always been better, _not my fault you’re an archer and I’m a super soldier, you’re not a super soldier, you just have better reflexes, don’t clip my wings, Barton_ ) and she stumbles backwards, steadied by his iron grip.

“Like hell you are.” His eyes are hard and she grits her teeth, finding her balance in the murky water, digging her toes into the coarse bathmat.

“Clint, look. I swear – it’s not what you think. I just got…distracted; I was thinking –”

“You don’t just get distracted with a razor in the bathtub, Tasha!” Clint bursts out, finally letting go of her body. He slams his fist into the door behind him and presses a hand to his eye. “ _Fuck_!”

“Calm down.” Her voice drops, eyes narrowed and sharp. “By morning, these will be like flesh wounds.” As if to make a point, she reaches across him for a towel and presses the soft cloth to her leg, the urge to wince dissipating under the pressure she feels from his gaze. Clint throws up his hands.

“You’re a fucking mess.”

“At least one of us is,” she snaps without missing a beat, stepping out of the shower as he backs up almost unconsciously. “Can I have a moment to put my clothes on or do you want to watch and make sure I don’t stick my head in the toilet bowl?”

She can see the wheels turning as he struggles with whether or not to retort and then the lines around his mouth harden as he turns, opening the door and slamming it closed again. The impact leaves the structure shaking, leaves Natasha shaking, and she wasn’t lying, she hadn’t been lying when she said she was distracted. She _had_ been distracted, and it wasn’t _his_ fucking fault that they were both still dealing with Loki’s aftermath and then _this_ and _come on, Barton, if you try to tell me you haven’t had one moment after it all where something went wrong, then you_ really _have issues…_

She presses the towel to her knees a few more times until the blood has stopped pooling at the various cuts around her skin and pulls on a tee shirt and sweatpants, not bothering to towel her hair. Taking a last look in the mirror, two hollow pupils filled with a fear that she knows is only visible to her own eyes, she steels her gaze and steps out into the bedroom. Clint is sitting on the edge of bed, straight and upright, clutching his bow with both hands and working his fingers across the edges as if in a trance.

“You planning on shooting me?” she asks quietly as he looks up, a wry grin shadowing the lower half of his face.

“Wouldn’t be the first time.”

There’s a moment where time seems to stop between them and she looks down before she speaks again.

“No,” she agrees, running fingers through waterlogged hair. “It wouldn’t be.”

They stand like that for a while, separated by space and emotion, an invisible wall filled with barriers that neither of them are ready to admit or ready to attempt to climb, rigid and tense and verging on the edge of something dangerous before Natasha moves forward, lowering herself hesitantly to the bed and spreading her hands over her knees.

“I told you before this all started that I was going to give it up.” Her voice takes on a softness that seems out of the ordinary, even for all the times he’s seen her bare her emotions. “I wasn’t even going to tell you, probably. I was just going to give it up. Cut it out. Whatever. Hadn’t really thought that part through.” She looks up, staring across the room, eyes unfocused.

“But you didn’t.”

“But I didn’t,” she repeats, transferring her gaze. Clint blows out a breath.

“So then you wanna tell me why you pulled that stunt in the bathroom? And why you’ve been back to acting strange ever since the ultrasound?”

It doesn’t surprise her that he’s picked up on her emotions; she never expected him to be _that_ dumb. Clint Barton is smarter than he gives himself credit for; he would’ve never been able to come out of Loki’s spell if he wasn’t - that much Natasha knew; she knew because you don’t just pull people out of brainwashing situations like it’s all a bad dream. You have to be strong enough to want to come out, to fight even when you don’t think you’re fighting, to grab onto something, hang on to it and not let go even when you think it’s all over.

“We’re having a baby,” she says after a long beat, as if she’s hearing herself say it for the first time, and Clint raises his eyebrow.

“Yeah, I figured that,” he says a little sarcastically, motioning to her body. Natasha shakes her head.

“Clint, we’re _having a baby_ ,” she repeats, wrenching backwards as he grabs for her arm, closing his fingers around her bicep.

“Hey, hey.” Clint tries to stop his voice from rising. “Calm down, okay? It’s going to be okay.”

“No, it’s not,” she returns desperately. “It’s not okay, Clint; I’m not…there’s no way out of this. There’s no extraction plan. This kid is real; it’s going to either live or die by our hands, and it’s not going to be okay.”

“It _will_ be,” he emphasizes, because he knows he needs to fight her fear with his confidence, even if it all blows up in his face, even as he watches Natasha’s own face go dark.

“How can it be?” she asks, wringing her hands together as the words roll out. “Fuck, Clint. How are we going to do this? Where the hell is it going sleep? What is it going to wear? How am I going to take care of it when I can barely take care of myself? We’re both emotionally compromised on a daily basis and so is everyone else we live with, and now we’re going to be forced to take care of this…this other life? And what if something goes wrong still; what if we fuck this all up?”

“Why does any of that matter?” Clint asks, more gently than she thinks her outburst deserves, and she mutely shakes her head because it doesn’t. It doesn’t matter now, any of it; it’s over and done and at the time, there was running and there were holes in the wall and yelling and screaming, but now there’s acceptance, sort of, and Clint and Tony and Bruce and Steve and medical records and everything is going to be fine, maybe, possibly, hopefully, _no, Bruce said it, everything is going to be fine._

“Because I’m not a mother!” she erupts roughly. “I’m not a mother, and you’re not a father, and you need to stop pretending this is something we could have ever planned for.”

His gaze hardens at that, and she sees the vein in his temple start to throb slightly as he struggles not to lose it completely. “Get real, Nat,” he spits back just as harshly. “You think I’m any more prepared for this than you are? Just because my childhood wasn’t filled with brainwashing and trigger warnings?”

In one sense he’s gone too far, in another sense he’s gone _just as far as he knows he can go_ in pushing Natasha without the end result of it being her pulling a trigger on him, and they both know it. Still, she finds herself standing without thinking, hands clenched in hard fists.

“Don’t you dare –”

“Don’t I dare what?” He rises to his feet almost as fast. “Because if you give me one more excuse about how you think you’re going to make a shitty parent, I’ll do you one better. You’re not the only fucked up person in this relationship.”

Everything about his body is tensed as if he’s ready to attack; she sees it in his face and in the way the curve of his arm flexes as if he’s preparing to reach for his bow. When her hand swings up, Clint catches it promptly, skin meeting skin as their palms slam together. She’s inches away from his face, a mixture of fear and anger swimming in her eyes, and he searches until he finds what he recognizes as a shred of calm.

Clint holds onto it, fixates on it until he sees her start to focus and come back to herself, her body relaxing slightly. He slowly loosens his grip on her hand, watching it fall limply to her side as she sinks back onto the bed.

“Did that feel good?” He steps back, massaging his knuckles, and she nods slowly.

“Yes.” She swallows once, bringing her hands back to her lap as he moves in front of her, a bemused smile settling over his face. She narrows her eyes at the reaction.

“ _What_?”

Clint shakes his head, stifling a laugh. “Jesus, you think I can’t read you, Tasha? After all of this? Like I didn’t know from the moment you walked out of the bathroom that you wanted to hit me.”

“I –” Natasha starts to defend herself, then stops, considering his response. “I could say the same about you.”

“You could. But you also knew I wasn’t going to shoot you,” Clint counters with a raised brow, watching her face as she reconciles his words with her thoughts.

“Jesus Christ, Barton. Am I ever _not_ going to owe you a debt?”

“At this point? Unlikely.”

Natasha scowls. “Well, then. I guess you’ll have to continue accepting the vast amount of trust you apparently place in me, whether this kid is born or not.”

“I guess I have to, given that at one time I trusted that we wouldn’t kill each other,” he responds, looking down. Natasha feels herself sober at that, something clicking into place in her mind: the reality of how far they’ve come and how far they still need to go and how much she needs him to get through this - to get through any of it. Clint sighs heavily in the silence that follows.

“Come here.” He gets up from the bed, tugging her towards the door, and Natasha lets herself follow him curiously as he starts walking down the hall.

“I was saving this,” he continues. “And I wasn’t sure if you wanted to see it. Or if you cared.” At her glare, he shrugs. “I was going to wait, but I think maybe this is what you need now.”

Natasha sighs, rubbing her forehead. “Please don’t tell me this is some sort of pregnancy contraption that you and Tony dreamed up. It’s bad enough I had to talk him out of putting jet packs on your quiver last week.”

Clint laughs slightly. “This doesn’t even involve him,” he promises, pushing open the door to what Natasha assumes is one of Stark’s many guest bedrooms. “I swear.”

He flicks on the light and Natasha’s eyes widen in surprise and shock as she takes in her surroundings. Aside from a closet and a made-up queen bed, there’s a beautifully crafted light oak-colored crib standing in the middle of the room and she feels her breath catch in her throat at the sight

“There’s, uh, there’s a card,” Clint says quietly as she stares wordlessly, reaching inside the crib and picking up a small square of paper. “I didn’t read it, though, because I thought you should do the honors.”

Natasha walks forward and drags her finger over the delicate design of the crib, the smooth furnishings and the small, intricately drawn arrowheads and hourglasses carved into the molding. She meets his outstretched fingers, taking the note from him and opening it slowly.

“What’s it say?” he asks, watching the smile creep onto her face.

“Gift from Thor and Jane. Though, given the design of this, I suppose mostly Thor,” she says just as softly, dropping the card back into the crib. Clint’s mouth dissolves into his own smile as he looks up while Natasha moves her hand over the rails.

“Why didn’t you show me this before?” she asks suddenly. “Why didn’t I even notice?”

Clint shrugs, suddenly looking a little lost. “I didn’t want to scare you,” he admits when he finally speaks. “You’ve been…well, I’m not sure where you’ve been. But the last thing I wanted to do was to freak you out. So I was going to show you, really, maybe in another month or so when you were closer to delivering, but you didn’t even want to talk about names…”

He trails off, and the sadness in his voice makes her feel like she’s been punched in the gut, something like guilt spreading through her body at the realization of the fact that she’s been so busy trying keep herself sane that she’s missed out on how hard it’s been for everyone else – and how hard it’s been for him to be there for her.

“Step away from living in your scars,” Clint says gently, his voice a soothing blanket of trust. “Step away from them, and learn to live with them. Use them as a reminder, not a vice, hell, let this _kid_ learn from them. We owe it that much.”

Natasha swallows down the lump in her throat as she closes the distance between them, letting him wrap his arms around her body, pressing herself against him as comfortably as she can until she feels him start to relax in her grip.

“It’s a nice crib,” she says, her voice breaking slightly, and he rubs a hand over her back in small, comforting circles.

“It’s a very nice crib,” he responds, kissing the top of her head.

**Author's Note:**

> A long and frustrating writer's block attributed to the three month wait that I completely did not intend, and for all those who stood by patiently, I hope it delivered. I promise my next installments (as we're getting towards the end) won't be as long of a stretch and I truly appreciate everyone who is still invested in this ride.


End file.
